How to be A Profitable Trader with a Day Job

Do you think that it is impossible to be a profitable trader because you have a 9 to 5 day job? If that’s what you think, sorry, but you are wrong. The fact of the matter is that here we have 8 great tips to help you become a profitable trader, even with a full-time day job on the side. No, it might not be easy per say, but it’s definitely doable.

Tips to Become a Profitable Trader with a Day Job

Even if you have a 9 to 5 day job, it does not mean that you cannot become a profitable trader. As long as you follow the tips we are about to go over below, becoming a profitable trader should not be too much of a challenge.

The Right Kind of Trading

The first tip to become a profitable trader is that you need to pick a trading style that suits you best, and the ones you have to choose from are day trading and swing trading. Now, day trading is great for making profits, but it is far more time consuming.

You have to trade on a daily basis, presumably in the evenings when you get home from work. Sure, this is fine, but swing trading tends to be better for people with day jobs.

Swing trading allows you to plan and trade over the weekend, without much to be done during the week. It’s much more time efficient and convenient for people with day jobs. If you have enough time to spare on a daily basis, you could try your hand at day trading.

Stick with a System

Once you have chosen a style of trading, and you have landed on a decent trading methodology or strategy, stick with it. The fact of the matter is that many newbies don’t become profitable traders because they keep jumping around from one trading method to another.

Doing this means that you never really get enough practice with one method, certainly not enough to become proficient with it.

Therefore, we recommend doing some analysis and research in order to choose one method that is easy and fast. Once you have chosen it, stick with it for at least 1 year. Bouncing back and forth from one strategy to another won’t get you anywhere.

Trade Your Plans

Whatever your plan is, stick to it. When it comes to the most profitable traders out there, they all have solid plans and they stick to them. Know what strategy you want to use, the indicators, the specific timeframes, and decide how much money you want to invest in each and every trade.

Moreover, decide what kind of prices to go after. One thing that you can do is to use a price alert system, which will provide you with alerts when the prices of specific markets or assets reach a desirable level. Once you get the alerts that suit your plan, all that is left is to execute trades.

Work on Improvement

One of the most important tips that we can give you in order to become a profitable trader is that you always and constantly need to work on self improvement. The fact of the matter is that human error is the biggest obstacle to trading successfully, or in other words, you are your own greatest enemy.

It is unavoidable that you will lose trades, but the trick is to examine your own trading, your mistakes, and your weaknesses.

You need to be able to accurately identify your mistakes, and then fix them too. Go over all of your lost trades and examine them to see exactly why they were lost. If you don’t do this, history is doomed to repeat itself and you will just keeping making the same mistakes over and over again.

Eliminate Time Wasters

Do you spend lots of time watching tv, playing video games, going outside to play sports, or just sitting around and drinking tea? If so, if you want to become a profitable trader, then you need to cut some of those things out, or if you don’t want to eliminate them totally, cut back on each one.

Simply put, trading takes time, and if you waste time on useless stuff in your life, you won’t be practicing your trading as much. Cut out an hour of Netflix in favor of some evening trading, and you will quickly improve your results.

Don’t Set Unrealistic Goals

If you plan on becoming a profitable trader, something else that you need to do is to stop setting unrealistic goals. In fact, you might not want to set any goals at all. If you focus on when you trade and how much you trade, particular how much profit you make, you will be consistently disappointed.

Simply focus on your strategy, dedicate time to trading, and don’t give up. However, setting profit goals won’t get you anywhere, and as a beginner trader, setting goals like this may actually deter you from trading when you inevitably fail to meet those goals.

Be Weary of Demo Accounts

Something that needs to be said is that demo accounts are useful for a while. Demo trading accounts allow newbies to trade with fake money as opposed to real money. It’s a great way to get the hang of things and to test out new strategies.

However, you do need to be weary of demo accounts. This is because they don’t have consequences. If you lose all of your “money” in a demo account, you won’t really care because it wasn’t real money, so it doesn’t affect you.

Many people then forget this when they start trading with real accounts, and often suffer harsh consequences for mistakes right from the get go. Simply put, don’t rely on demo accounts too much because they can end up costing you when you start trading for real.

Start Small & Take it Slow

The final tip to become a profitable trader is to start small and then grow that small account. You should be patient and have reasonable expectations. You need to realize that you still have a full-time day job, and therefore your quality of life does not rely solely on trading, so don’t feel too much pressure.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that it is indeed possible to become a profitable trader even with a 9 to 5 job, as long as you follow the tips we have outlined here today.